Prioritizing: The much-needed skill of focus

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As leaders in the mortgage industry, we face a great variety of priorities every single day. It can be hard to narrow down what we need to focus on in any given moment. There are so many things calling for our attention. How can we sort it all out and get down to what really matters?

The problem, I think, isn't that we have trouble prioritizing; we know intuitively after being in the industry for so long the things that are important and the things that aren't.

As leaders, the problem is finding the clear-headedness to focus on one priority at a time. While we may have many priorities, there should only be one priority in any given moment.

The secret to accomplishing anything in business is focus. Trying to do too many things at once can lead us to not getting anything done at all. The problem is that we can sometimes be tempted to think that, just because we're busy, we're being productive. The truth is that spreading ourselves too thin dilutes our effectiveness on any given task. If we want to get things done, we need to focus on one thing at a time.

Take a look at your business. What are the chief priorities that you need to be working on? Now, take that list and narrow it down further--what is the one priority you need to be working on right now? My advice: thinks about and work on that problem exclusively until it's solved. Then, you can move on to the next. That's how to get things done!